Polites, who now lives in Providence, R.I., is returning to his native Huntsville with a possible best-selling novel on his hands. “The Rebel Wife,” published this month, is a historical narrative of the post-Civil War South with plenty of Southern Gothic suspense thrown in. It’s getting great reviews.

Polites will talk about his work in the second-floor events room at the main library, 915 Monroe St., on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.

When I caught Polites on his cell phone on the road between tour stops, he told me about his inspirations.

“From a young age, I would do tours of the antebellum district downtown, and I’d see the cotton fields,” he said. “It was that atmosphere of the old South that I grew up with. Then I read ‘Gone with the Wind,’ and I was really captivated.

“Reading the fictional world and seeing the remnants of the historic world all combined with my desire to write from the historical perspective that addressed the literary archetypes of the South.”

Polites said he relishes turning inside out those old Scarlett O’Hara traditions and assumptions. “The Rebel Wife” offers a fresh take, and it’s attracting lots of positive buzz. Here’s a sample:

Colum McCann, National Book Award winner for “Let the Great World Spin,” says Polites’ novel “removes the skin of an era, and questions so many of the tropes that hover around 19th-century Southern American literature.”

The Atlanta-Journal Constitution named “The Rebel Wife” one of the best new Southern books for 2012. BookPage.com gave the novel five stars and a glowing review for “shattering stereotypes in antebellum Alabama.”

Polites even received the blessing of O Magazine, which lists “The Rebel Wife” as one of “Ten Titles to Pick Up Now” in the February issue. The magazine’s review

says, “This engrossing novel about a resilient heroine in the post-Civil War South has all the drama of the era and none of the clichés.”

Civil War-era fiction gives way to civil rights-era fact on Wednesday when Birmingham native Waights Taylor Jr. discusses his nonfiction book “Our Southern Home: Scottsboro to Montgomery to Birmingham – The Transformation of the South in the Twentieth Century.” The program will be held at 6 p.m. in the second-floor events room of the main library.

Taylor’s focus is on three Southerners, 18 years old on the fateful day of March 25, 1931: Clarence Norris, black, is boarding a freight train as a hobo in Chattanooga; Waights Taylor Sr., white, is a student at the University of Alabama; Rosa McCauley Parks, black, is a resident of Pine Level, Ala. They didn’t know that events were about to happen in Scottsboro that would change their lives and the whole South as well.

“Our Southern Home” is receiving its share of good reviews, too.

According to Diane McWhorter, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Carry Me Home: Birmingham Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution,” Taylor “has found the intersection between his personal story and the great narrative of history, and as a result has given us a fresh and vital new perspective on the well-known sagas of the Scottsboro Boys and Rosa Parks. ‘Our Southern Home’ is thoroughly researched, engagingly written, and deeply felt.”

Laura Caldwell Anderson, archivist at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, says Taylor’s “fascinating weaving of three stories into one” results in a “thoroughly engaging illustration of a region’s gradual, and ongoing, transformation.”

Taylor, now a resident of Santa Rosa, Calif., spent 24 years in the aviation industry and 22 years in management consulting before turning to writing. His first book, “Alfons Mucha’s Slav Epic: An Artist’s History of the Slavic People,” was published in 2008. “Our Southern Home” came out in October 2011.

Books will be available for purchase and signing at both events. For more information, check out the library’s website, hmcpl.org, or call 256-532-5940.

Ann Marie Martin, The Times’ former books editor, is now communications director at the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library.